Shortly after Mi Amore Cadenza managed to stop an invasion of Dragons on Canterlot, earning herself a horn and becoming an Alicorn, when I was twelve, Princess Celestia took me to visit the Magical Prison of Tartarus for the first time.
Tartarus was built inside a hollow mountain, using space magic to make it bigger on the inside that it was on the outside. A Prison dedicated for the most dangerous creatures, Monsters that the S.M.I.L.E Organization could not safely contain or manage on their own.
I saw cages with creatures I've never seen before, Bugbears that were several stories tall, Hydras with venom so potent that just breathing the same air as them caused your skin to itch, Cragadiles with hides tougher than mountains, and even a Bunyip ten times the size of a Pony.
And yet nothing in that prison caught my attention more than the creature whose cage was separated from all the others.
I do not know how to explain it. I barely even looked at that thing, only a glimpse of it as Celestia and I began to leave, my eyes catching a glimpse of it from the corner of my eyes as I noticed the metal of its cage in the distance.
And I saw it staring back at me, intelligent eyes, wiry thin limbs, and a calm and collected smile.
I felt sick after looking at it, as if bile began to rise in my throat, my body yelling at me in its own unique way to stay away from that creature.
I was a snake, and it was a mongoose. That is the only way I can articulate my explanation for it.
That creature, Lord Tirek, was my natural predator.
It was as simple as that. I had no other way to explain it.
That Centaur and I, we were natural enemies.
That's all there was.
Despite all the years that have passed since then, I still sometimes see those eyes in my dreams, looking at me from afar, a knowing smile on that face. As if it had me read like a book from just a glance.
Perhaps it was simply my young mind making up stories to keep me away from it, perhaps I was simply exaggerating it all, but on the simple off chance that I wasn't, I needed to find out for myself.
I needed to see that creature one more time.
I needed to make sure that I was not a snake.
Or at the very least, that it was not a Mongoose.
Because if I turned out to be correct...
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"This was a great idea, we can get our Cutie Marks as zoologists!" Near the edge of Ponyville, in a small area that bordered on the Everfree Forest, a young filly by the name of Apple Bloom said cheerfully, a green bandana tied around her neck and a khaki safari shirt worn over the front of her torso.
"Zoo-what?" One of Apple Bloom's best friends, a young Pegasus by the name of Scootaloo spoke up, "No, we're getting them in being jungle explorers!" She said, wearing a homemade Jungle Explorer costume, complete with an open grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a whip, and brown fedora.
"I don't think Fluttershy's backyard can be considered The Jungle." The third and final filly, Sweetie Belle, spoke up, using the light from a nearby lantern to read a book about animals, wearing a Prench pith safari hat. "Hmm... Did you know that the study of ponies is called hippology?"
"I don't think we look much like hippos..." Scootaloo grumbled to herself.
"So, what should we do out here to try and earn our Cutie Marks?" Sweetie Belle asked, "We could try being pet psychics!"
"Er... No." Scootalo said, "How about, Lion tamers!" She yelled, pulling up a hoop.
"Let's split up! We'll take turns working with the different animals!" Apple Bloom suggested, "I'm sure by the end of the night we'll have our Cutie Marks!"
"Cutie Mark Crusaders Animal Helpers Go!" The trio of fillies shouted in unison before splitting up to try and discover their special talents.
"If this doesn't get me a Cutie Mark, I don't know what will." Scootaloo said as she sat down and observed her work, watching the friendly brown bear that lived in Fluttershy's backyard ride on her scooter as he snapped his fingers and twirled around with a cute pink tutu.
"Hehe..." On the other side of the yard, Apple Bloom was chatting with one of the animals, "I don't think I have the necessary Koalafications to work with you," She smiled brightly, ignoring the blank stare she received from the Koala bear she was talking to.
"Hey..." Sweetie Belle spoke up as she started to notice some of the animals acting weird, "Girls? What's that group of animals doing?" She pointed at the weirdly acting animals.
"Why are they all staring at us?" Scootaloo asked as she looked at where Sweetie Belle was pointing, seeing the menagerie of animals staring at them.
"And why do they have glowing eyes?" Apple Bloom asked, and the other two fillies noticed that the animals' eyes were indeed shimmering with a cyan glow.
"I don't like this..." Sweetie Belle said as she began to walk backwards, away from the animals, trying her best to keep her eyes open, only to jump in fright at as a cracking sound echoes out around her, causing the Unicorn filly to quickly look down, just to let out a sigh of relief at seeing that she simply stepped on a twig.
And when Sweetie Belle raised her head back, she saw the animals pouncing at her and her friends.
"NOOO!"
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"Apple Bloom! It's time to get up!" The voice of a mare yelled inside the farmhouse of Sweet Apple Acres, calling her sister to wake up.
Applejack hummed to herself a cheery tune as she prepared her breakfast, consisting of a warm slice of apple pie that was left over from yesterday's dinner, half an apple, and a glass of carrot juice.
She may love apples, but she does need to keep her diet healthy and diverse!
Before she could sit down and eat her meal, she spotted Apple Bloom enter the kitchen.
"Hey Buckaroo!" She greeted her younger sister, "How was the critter wrangling? Got your cutie mark yet?" Applejack asked, knowing full well by the still blank flank on her younger sister what the answer was.
But asking wasn't about learning the answer, it was about having Apple Bloom speak to her, and to hear the answers from her own mouth.
Applejack read that in one of the books Pinkie Pie dropped at Twilight's while preparing to babysit for the Cake's.
"No." Apple Bloom answered blankly, her eyes staring dead ahead in the direction she was walking.
"Err... Well, maybe you can try something else?" Applejack suggested, "Twilight says there's a fancy comet flying overhead in a few days, we could set up a tent in the orchard, a little sisterly bonding. You can try your hooves at astronomy too!"
"Not interested." Apple Bloom replied with the same blank tone before she walked out the front door and left the house.
"What's got her so addled?" Applejack asked herself before she decided to eat her breakfast before her pie grew too cold.
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Standing in front of a sewing machine, Rarity bit her lip as she worked on an outfit, a pair of red glasses resting on her nose and a pencil tucked behind her ear as she focused on the red cloth that lay in front of her.
"Oh!" Rarity suddenly exclaimed as the soft sound of hooves tapping alerted her to her sister's presence, "Sweetie Belle!" She turned to address her younger sibling, "You're looking... Um, stoic this morning?"
Sweetie Belle continued making her way toward the door of the house, "Fine. Bye." She said, her voice emotionless as she kept staring blankly ahead.
"Was I that odd when I was her age?" Rarity asked herself as she took a step back away from her sewing machine, "I don't think I was- OH!" Rarity's eyes widened as she spotted something horrible, so terrible she had to do something about it immediately, "That hat over there needs more feathers!"
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Leaning back on a cloud, Rainbow Dash's mind raced as she imagined her friends' reaction to what she was going to do later that day, before her eyes spotted a familiar filly and a smile spread on her face.
"Hey, Scoots!" She pushed her cloud closer to the ground, waving at Scootaloo, "Wanna' help me work on that trick I was telling you about? I need someone to hold the stopwatch!"
Instead of the usual response of excitement that Rainbow Dash was expecting from the filly, she instead received a blank faced "No."
"No?" Rainbow Dash repeated the word, tasting it on her tongue as if it was the height of absurdity coming out of the filly's mouth, "Who wouldn't want to hang out with me? Me?! But..." Rainbow Dash gasped in shock, unable to even believe that this was the answer she received, "But I'm awesome..."
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"...And then she just left! Left me!" Rarity rolled her eyes as she listened to Rainbow Dash explain the same five second interaction she had earlier for what must have been the tenth time already.
"Hrm... Those three fillies are sure actin' funny." Applejack said before her eyes caught a familiar face, "There's Twilight..." Applejack pointed out, "She'll have some idea what's goin' on."
"There you are, girls," Twilight Sparkle said as she trotted over to her friends, "Everypony is acting so strange!" She told the group, taking a look around her and seeing all the ponies walking around with their blank expressions, their eyes shimmering with a greenish-cyan light that she could almost recognize from somewhere but seemed to be escaping her memory at the moment.
"I've been trying to plan a viewing celebration for the Secretariat Comet this week and I can't get anyone to listen to me at all..."
"What was that?" Rainbow Dash asked as he raised her leg and looked at its bottom, scowling at the sight of a piece of gum stuck to her hoof, "I wasn't listening."
"Rainbow!" Applejack reprimanded her friend before turning to the purple unicorn, "Twilight, my sister and her friends are acting as peculiar as everypony else. Something ain't right here!"
"Have any of you seen Cheerilee?" The group turned to see Fluttershy walk towards them, Pinkie Pie bouncing along beside her, "I just heard she didn't show up to the schoolhouse today! Oh, I hope she isn't sick..." Fluttershy muttered.
"And the cakes didn't open Sugarcube Corner this morning!" Pinkie Pie spoke up seeing as it's been a full second before any of her friends spoke up instead, "At first I thought maybe they were planning a party because Mr. Cake's birthday is in 43 days and it's cutting it way close to just be starting in on ordering supplies..." Pinkie Pie told her friends how her morning went.
"But when I asked about it, they just looked at me like I was crazy."
None of her friends had the heart to tell her that she slightly was.
"Everypony is acting so bizzare!" Twilight Sparkle quickly changed back to the original topic before Pinkie Pie could go on a meaningless rant about flour prices, "More and more ponies by the hour! What in Equestria is going on?" Twilight said, looking around at the crowd of blank faced ponies that walked around her, some with their eyes shimmering with that same familiar light that Twilight just couldn't put her hoof on.
"Uh..." Fluttershy began to speak as she watched the crowd slowly start to walk in their direction, "I think we should move the conversation to somewhere more..." Fluttershy froze as she spotted her younger brother near the back of the crowd, standing tall over much of the crowd, the same blank expression on his face, "Private?" She swallowed the spit that began to form in her mouth before she began weakly pushing Twilight to do something.
"Quick, Girls!" Twilight yelled, "To the library!"
"That's your solution for everything." Rainbow Dash said as the group ran towards the Golden Oaks Library, and away from the slow-moving, expressionless, blank faced ponies that began to slowly walk after them.
"Quick! Get in here!" They watched as the door to the Library was opened from the inside by Spike the Dragon as he watched them run over, allowing them to quickly enter the library and slam the door behind them.
"What is wrong with everypony?!" Pinkie Pie yelled as she held the door down, the slow and forceful bangs from the other side rattling her body as she leaned back against the door.
With a glow to her horn, Twilight fired a beam of magic at the door, and Pinkie Pie let out a sigh of relief as the banging on the door stopped.
"I don't know precisely what's happening," Twilight Sparkle told her friends as she looked at the windows to the library, watching the blank eyes of the Ponies outside stare at her unblinkingly before she closed the blinds and turned to look at her books, "But I might have an idea..."